Animosity practically oozed from his pores. Why? What in the hell was going on? “You know who I mean.”
“Perhaps I do. And perhaps it is none of your business.”
“But it
Besides, it was something I should have thought about
“He lives. Anything more you have no need nor right to know.”
The urge to smack
“What have you done?” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “Duty is all to those of us who guard, and duty unfinished is a crime against all.”
Meaning
I cut the rest of the sentence off. I was talking to air anyway. The reaper had disappeared.
“You could at least have the decency to hear me out, you bastard.”
The reaper no doubt heard, but he was unlikely to care one way or another. And to be honest, no amount of lashing out – whether verbally or physically – was going to make me feel any better.
Only getting Azriel back in my life was ever going to do that.
I swore again and stalked out of the building. Jak’s red Honda pulled up a heartbeat later, and I quickly climbed in.
He glanced at me as he pulled away from the curb. “You look like a woman with a problem.”
“Yeah, and it’s a universal one called men.”
He grinned. “May I point out that we males think much the same about you females?”
“When you’re not trying to get into our pants, you mean?”
His grin grew. “Even
I crossed my arms. “No one.”
“That is a problem, I agree.”
I snorted and whacked his arm. “That’s not what I’m annoyed about.”
“Then what’s upset you? You were fine when I left to get the car. What happened in the five minutes it took me to get back here? Did the wiring attack again?” He hesitated, his brief glance shrewd. “It’s to do with your reaper, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. I banished him – justifiably, I might add – but I wish I hadn’t.”
“Then unbanish him.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
Why not indeed. I hesitated. “What he did – it was bad, and it’s something that can’t be undone.”
“Was it worse than me starting a relationship with you to get a story? Worse than Lucian killing your mother, then bedding you for information?”
I opened my mouth to say yes, then stopped. Put like that, the answer was actually no. Even if Azriel had a tendency to keep secrets, he’d
I might be furious with him, might feel betrayed by his actions, but he’d
Why would he think my life – or rather, all my future lives – were any less expendable?
He wouldn’t. As the hostile reaper had pointed out, duty was all to a reaper. It rose above everything, even family and love. He might care for me, but that would not have stopped him from doing what needed to be done in order to finish his mission.
The only thing that
I scrubbed a hand across suddenly stinging eyes and swore yet again.
“So,” Jak murmured. “Not as bad.”
“No.” I hesitated. It felt a little weird discussing this with Jak, of all people. And yet, he was also the one person who would understand betrayal, even if from the other side. “But I don’t know if I can move past —”
“Relationships are hard work,” he interrupted. “They’re all about give and take. If Azriel did the latter rather than the former, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to walk away? Or is whatever lay between you special enough to work on a fix?”
He smiled. “I’ve had more than my fair share of broken relationships, remember. And you didn’t answer my question.”
“That’s because I haven’t actually got one.” A lie, but I wasn’t about to admit my feelings to Jak before I admitted them to Azriel.
“Then I suggest you do so – and before the gulf between you gets too wide to traverse. Besides, running away from a problem is never a good idea.”
Which was an echo of what Aunt Riley had said to me when I’d first woken in hospital after being dragged back from death.
I hadn’t wanted to listen to her back then. Hadn’t really wanted to listen to anyone – not even when my own intuition had suggested that banishing Azriel was the worst possible move I could ever make. I’d been far too angry.
But somewhere between waking this morning and now, my brain cells had finally started functioning again. The truth of the matter was, despite the pain and the hurt, despite the sense of betrayal, I needed Azriel in my life. I just had to hope that it wasn’t already too late to get him back.
I grabbed a quick shower at Jak’s in the vague hope that it’d wash away all the bits of fluff and debris that were both on and
But just as I was about to pull on the dress, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror behind me, and froze. Because my reflection now bore a series of tattoos that ran up the back of my neck and disappeared into my hairline. They were a mix of patterns that sometimes resembled the known – one looked vaguely like a rose, another like an eye with a comet’s tail – and at other times looked nothing more than random swirls. But these weren’t any old tats. They were a tribal signature – Azriel’s tribal signature.
Obviously, when he’d leashed our energy beings and bound us together forever, I’d become part of his tribe. His family. The one he was apparently refusing to see because of his shame at being a dark angel.
And for the first time since I’d woken up in the hospital, I had to wonder – at what cost to himself had he made me one?
He’d once said that if we’d assimilated – if we’d become so attuned to each other that our life forces merged – his reaper powers would become muted, and he would never again be able to function as a soul bearer. So in saving me, had he sacrificed his own desire to once again escort souls?
As much as I hated that he’d taken away my right to die as I was destined, it seemed very wrong that he’d also suffer the loss of his own dreams. Becoming a Mijai had been a punishment for him, and it wasn’t something he’d wanted to spend eternity doing.